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To reduce blight, Jefferson Parish makes exception to low-bid process

high grass.jpg

A contract worker for Jefferson Parish cut high grass on a blighted lot in 2013. The contract to cut blighted properties was rewarded to three separate companies by the parish, in a process that was questioned by the watchdog group Citizens for Good Government.
(Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

At the time, Parish President John Young described the move as a contract reform. He said his administration would use sealed-bid processes whenever possible.

But on Wednesday, the Parish Council, with Young's blessing, used the old process to select a company for another grass-cutting contract. Young said it is a singular exception. "It is our policy, and it will continue to be our policy in the Young administration, that when we can do low-bid contracts we will," he said.

He was responding to criticism from a watchdog group that described the latest selection as a potential waste of taxpayer dollars. "Citizens for a Good Government is extremely disturbed that a request for proposals ... is being used for this process, instead of a sealed bid," said Margie Seeman, the group's president. "For some reason, our government exercised an unwise option."

Administrators said that in this instance, the old method will better serve taxpayers. Parish attorney Deborah Foshee said the 2011 sealed-bid award applied to a contract to cut grass on public property, including those sweeps of green along the banks of drainage canals. The size of the area to be cut under that contract is a known quantity.

But under the contract awarded Wednesday, the grass to be cut is on private property, at blighted homes and businesses, and the size of the area is not so predictable. "You do not know on any given day or any given year what you're going to be cutting," Foshee said.

In addition, Young said, council members have not been happy with having only one company available to respond to high-grass complaints on private property. "When this came up because of blight and code enforcement issues, it was the council wishes, as we understood it, that they wanted to make sure they didn't have just one contractor available. So that that contractor couldn't get out quick enough in the summer months -- the high growing season, the fast growing season -- we would have two," Young said. "The parish attorney recommended you can't have a low bid when you're picking two."

"We want the opportunity to get as many qualified bidders in as possible and negotiate the lowest price," Foshee said.

The council picked three firms as qualified for the work: Task Force LLC, H&O Investments LLC and Ramelli Janitorial Services Inc. Task Force LLC previously held the same contract, exclusively.

According to public records, over the past five years Ramelli Janitorial Services Inc. has given $3,000 in political contributions to Young, $3,500 to Councilman Elton Lagasse and $1,000 to councilmen Ben Zahn. Task Force LLC and H&O Investments LLC gave no contributions to members of the parish council or Young, according to the same public records.